from the Proceedings of the All-India Oriental ConferenceVol. IX (Trivandrum: Government Press, 1937), pp. 955-997

Alexander the Great. Detail from the Alexander mosaic from the House of the Faun, Pompeii, c. 80 B.C. National Archaeologic Museum, Naples, Italy

The marvellous exploits of Alexander the Great startled and thrilled
the world. East and West vied with each other in paying him divine honours
during his life and after his death. Myths and legends woven around him,
embroidered with all the glowing colours of imagination spread through the
Continents. The lands he conquered and those beyond them told his tales in
diverse tongues. Greek and Latin, Syriac and Arabic,[1]Ethiopic, Hebrew, Samaritan, Armenian,
Persian, English and French, German and Italian, and even Scandinavian
languages of Europe, Asia, and Africa enshrined in prose and verse the immortal
romance of the Macedonian Prince. Those were the days when religion held sway
over the minds of men. His tolerance of faiths other than his own, his
cosmopolitan outlook in matters religious, inspired as it was by a deep vein of
mysticism helped him[2]
"wherever he went to treat with respect the local religion." His attitude towards
the religion of the Persians, his greatest adversaries, the destruction of
their sacred books at Persepolis is one of the rare exceptions to the rule of
his general tolerance. The Arabs worshipped him as Iskandar[3]
Dhu'lquarnein (two horned Alexander) and even Islam[4]
adopted Iskandar among her prophets, and carried his forgotten fame back into
India. He was the first Aryan monarch to become a God.[5]

When these various nations with whom he came into contact have
preserved various accounts of his life and conquests, have elevated him to the
position of a Superman and God, it is strange, if it be a fact, that Ancient
Indian Literature alone is oblivious of him. Great scholars and historians have
noted this phenomenon of apparent silence.[6]
But they are not surprised. Indians are a peculiar race. India ignores and
forgets.[7]
"It is a conspiracy of silence." "India remained unchanged. The wounds of
battle were quickly healed: the ravaged fields smile again.[8]
"No Indian author, Hindu or Jain or Buddhist makes even the faintest allusion
to Alexander or his deeds," asserted V.A. Smith, and he quotes with approval
the lines by Matthew Arnold:

"The East bowed low before the blastIn patient, deep disdain,She let the legions thunder past,And plunged in thought again."

Alexander the Great and Greek Companion cavalry ride into battle to defeat Persian King Darius at the Battle of Issus, 333 B.C. Alexander established a huge empire across much of the known world before his early death in 323 B.C.

It is a peculiar theory which holds that man in the East is radically different from
members of his species in the West. His skin may be dark or brown, but his
normal reactions to external stimuli cannot be different from those of his
fellow beings elsewhere. The sun might shine brighter on him and the hues of
land and sky might be more beautiful around him; but the fundamentals of human
psychology remain true everywhere. And the vaunted greatness of historians and
scholars cannot repudiate the patent facts of the character of ‘Homo Sapiens'.

If the Indian mind does not
materially differ in fundamental facts, the question naturally arises "Are
there allusions or references in Indian Literature to the conquest of
Alexander, and if so, what?"

This paper is an attempt to trace those references that lie
scattered over the vast range of Indian Literature.

In Persian and Arabic and in Eastern languages generally, it is a
well-known fact that Alexander is known under the name of Iskandar. And it is
natural, if Indian languages have used his name, it might be a variant of its
Asiatic form. What form could it normally assume in the ancient Sanskrit
language? We are familiar, through Buddhist sources with the Indianization of
the name of the Graeco-Bactrian King, Menander.[9]
It occurs as Melinda. On the same analogy, Iskander regularly becomes
‘Iskanda.' It is next an easy step to treat the initial ‘I' as a case of
prosthesis[10] as it
obtains regularly in Prakrits, and arrive at the Sanskrit form ‘Skanda'. But a
suspicion might lurk whether it is not a case of philological legerdemain. The
name of Skanda is familiar in Sanskrit, in Indian languages and literature in
general. But has it anything to do with Alexander the Great? Is it not an
isolated case of accidental coincidence? It behoves us to examine it further.

If there are historical facts of the life and deeds of Alexander
analogous to those of Skanda as we gather from the Indian literature and if
there is corroboration of material details in the lives of [people?],we
have to pause before we reject the hypothesis as idle, far-fetched fantasy.

At the outset, it must be borne in mind that many long centuries have sped since the days of
Alexander of Macedon. A tangled mass of myths have grown around his name and
eclipsed his true history. The folk-lore of centuries embodying the exploits of
local heroes lies entwined over the garbled tales of Alexander, often
distorting them beyond recognition. The life of Alexander by a
Pseudo-Callisthenes gained unmerited currency and the brilliant hues of lurid
fiction threw facts into the shade. We have, then, to extricate historical
matter from the cobwebs of age-old legends.

Alexander was a prince, and Kumāra, which means a prince in Sanskrit, is a synonym of ‘Skanda.' He was
a warlord and leader of an army, and Senānī which means the leader of
an army is again a name of Skanda. The lance was Alexander's favourite weapon,
and the weapon of Greek soldiers in general, and Skanda is called ‘Śakti-dhara'
(lance bearer). These are resemblances which may gain weight in the light of
other evidences.

The fondest hope and proudest ambition of Philip of Macedon,
Alexander's father was to lead a Crusade against Persia after achieving a
Pan-Hellenic Confederation. The memories of the incursion of the barbarian
hordes from Persia who devastated the smiling lands of Greece and subjugated
her inhabitants, were still there in the minds of men. But Philip did not live
long enough to see the fructification of his hopes. It was left to his son
Alexander to fulfil the dreams of his father. The conquest of Persia and the
establishment of a World Empire under Hellenic supremacy was his greatest
ambition. The defeat of Darius was perhaps the greatest event of his life. And
Skanda was born for the slaying of Tāraka, the asura, who menaced the
peace of the world. Now Tāraka is but the sanskritization of Darius[11]
‘Dāra' of Eastern legends (Dārayavus of the Persian Inscriptions).[12]
Darius in Persian means preserver or protector, and Tāraka in Sanskrit
also means preserver or protector. There is at once the similitude of sound and
sense. Against the advice[13]
of Parmenion, Alexander fired Xerxes's palace at Persepolis as a sign to all
Asia that Achaemenid rule had ended. And with the death of Darius and the
complete conquest of Persia, Ahura Mazda, the God of Persia was naturally
dethroned, and there appeared in his stead the new Aryan God from the West,
Alexander. The sway of Ahura Mazda waned with the vanquishing of Achaemenid
power. Alexander could legitimately be spoken of as having crushed Ahura Mazda,
the guardian deity of the King of Persia. Skanda is referred to as Mahişāsuramardana.
Now Mahişāsura appears to be the natural sanskritized form of
Mazda-Ahura. In the oldest portions of the Avesta, this compound word does not
occur in the form of Ahura Mazda.[14]
It is Mazda Ahura. But the Sanskrit form is a much-disputed point. Various
scholars of repute have essayed at length to arrive at the Sanskrit equivalent
of Ahura Mazda. That Asura is the Sanskrit equivalent of Ahura is admitted by
all. But controversy crops up, when we come to the equivalent of Mazda.

Dr D.B. Spooner connects it with Maya (Zoroastrian period of Indian
History, T.R.A.S. 1915, p. 63-89). The regular Indian equivalent according to
the Indologist Dr. Thomas and philologists like Dr. Brugmann (T.R.A.S 1915, p.
78) is ‘medha'. On the strength of a passage in the Rig Veda "Mahas
putrāso asurasya vīrāh" (Rg. 10.10-12), it is pointed out
that Mazda corresponds to Mahas – I venture to suggest that the Mahişāsura
of the Puranas is but a Sanskrit rendering of the Mazda Ahura of the
Persian, Mahişa being equivalent to Mazda.

But even in the Vedas, the word Mahişa is used in the sense of
the great or the venerable. The Uņādi sūtras derive it by
affixing ‘ṭişac' to mah, (avimahyoş
ṭişac – Unl.48). Jñānendra Sarasvati explains Mahişa
as Mahān and quotes ‘turīyam dhāma mahişo vivakti' ‘uta
mātā mahişam anvavenat'[15]
in support of his view; and Maz is admittedly the Avestic equivalent of
Sanskrit ‘Mah'. Compare also the feminine form Mahişī
which means a queen. The word Asura which originally possessed a good
signification came to acquire a bad import, probably after the rift between the
Persians and the Indo-Aryans.

Alexander married the beautiful princess Roxana the daughter of the
King of Bactria; and Skanda is said to have married Senā or Deva
Senā, daughter of Mrtyu according to Skanda Purāna[16]
and daughter of Prajāpati according to the Mahā Bhārata.[17]
Now it is a well-recognised symbol of language that proper names are contracted
in actual usage, and the end often chosen to designate the whole. It was an
accepted rule in Sanskrit[18],
Kātyāyana says[19]
"vināpi pratyayam pūrvottarapadayor lopo vācyah" and
Patanjali adds "lopah pūrvapadasya ca". Senā is but the latter
part of Roxana ill-disguised in Sanskrit garb. And the form Devasenā
is but a Sanskrit rendering with a view to preserving its sense, as Roxana is
derived from the root ‘raz' to ‘shine' just as deva is from ‘div'
to ‘shine'.[20] Evidently
the king of Bactria is denoted by the word Mŗtyu.

On his march into India, Alexander crossed the Hindu Kush mountain
through the Koashan pass.[21]
The Macedonians who served with Alexander called the mountain Kaukasos,[22]
perhaps to flatter Alexander attributing to him the highest geographical
adventure, the passage of the Caucasus. The name Hindu Kush is but a corrupted
form of ‘Indicus Caucasus'. ‘Grancasus' which means ‘white with snow' is
the original Scythic form of the word Caucasus.[23]
Skanda is refereed to as ‘Krauñca dāraņa', and Kraunca
is admitted on all hands to be the name of a mountain pierced through by
Skanda. Kalidasa refers to this mountain pass as a passage through which swans
make their seasonal flights.[24]
He but echoes the idea of the Mahābhārata which says ‘tena
hamsāś ca gŗdhras' ca merum gacchanti parvatam.'[25]
Now Krauncha is a more proximate variant of the Grancasus than Kush' is
of Caucasus. And the identification of the Kraunch pass with the Koashan is
natural and legitimate.

The glorious battle of Alexander, King of Macedon, and Porus, King of India. Russian lubok. Anonymous folk artist, early 18th Century

We next come to one of the most interesting facts of history.
Chandra Gupta Maurya, the first Emperor of India, while yet a boy, had seen
Alexander "the invincible splendid man from the West." "Later on when he became
a great King, Chandra Gupta worshipped Alexander among his Gods."[26]
It appears a curious fact that a Hindu King paid divine honours to a foreign
prince whom he had himself beheld. But the whole world had recognised his
divinity. Even the democratic cities of Greece deified and adored him. Egyptian
priest had acclaimed him as the son of God and God, and set their seal of assent
on the flagrant faith in his divinity. Alexander is said to have visited the
temple of Ammon Ra in the oasis of Siwa. He advanced into the mysterious inner
sanctuary, and the image declared[27]
"Come son of my loins, who loves me so that I give thee royalty of Ra, and the
royalty of Horus. I give thee the valiance, I give thee to hold all countries
and all religions under thy feet, I give thee to strike all the peoples united
together with thy arm".

It was not a notion new to Egypt. "Innumerable empires consecrated
to the Sun extended around the Nile. Millions obeyed the will of one. What the
ruler dreamed was fashioned by his slaves with their myriad hands. Everything
was possible to him. The King was the son of God…All obeyed him as the
descendant of the original conqueror. Because that first conqueror named
himself King and son of the Gods, all believed him. Here in the East, it is
possible to say to human beings, "I am your God," and all believe."[28]
That frame of mind is not the sole monopoly of the East. In the West also that
has been the case, and is so perhaps still. Heroes princes and prophets have
been deified in the East and the West from time immemorial. The pages of
history are strewn with the broken images of God Kings of all times and climes.
The elevation of a single man to power without adequate checks leads him to the
dizzy heights of megalomania: and people under his power bow before him and pay
divine homage; and others take up the thread where they leave it. From
Neolithic days when the symbolic sacrifice of a god-king was performed for the
fertility of the crop,[29]
down to modern times the belief in the chosen man has persisted. The Pharaohs
of Egypt, the divine monarchs of Peru,[30]
Alexander and Caesar are but a few examples. Dr. Rosenburg, chief of the
Department for the Ideological Training of the future German Nation is reported
to have said "We need a son of God. Today, there stands among us one, who has
been especially blessed by the creator. No one has the right to find fault with
those of our people who have found their son of God and have thus regained their
Eternal Father."[31] No wonder
Herr Hitler, the leader of Germany is being deified.

And in the East, the Dalai Lamas of Tibet and the Emperors of Japan,
not to speak of a host of other princes and priests, are living examples of
accredited divinity.[32]

The tendency to regard a great and strange foreigner as a god is no
less marked.[33] ‘The Greeks
were quite familiar with the idea that a passing stranger might be God. Homer
says that the Gods in the likeness of foreigners roam up and down cities.[34]
And, Alexander was no ordinary foreigner. He had captivated the imagination of
the world. He himself had a vague faith in his divinity. His followers
confirmed it. And Chandragupta might have been influenced by the prevalent
craze. His matrimonial alliance with Seleucus who succeeded to the throne of Persia
might have made it tactically opportune, and politically expedient. For Indian
corroboration, we have the much-disputed passage of Patanjali's
Mahābhāsya commenting on Pāņani's Sūtra "Jīvikārthe
cā'paņye" (5-3-99) "śivah Skando viśākha
iti…maurair hiraņyārthibhir arcāh prakalpitāh". No one
questions the fact that the Mauryas had something to do with the images of
Skanda. But who were the Mauryas referred to here? And what did they do? Images
are made for worship or for sale or are carried from door to door and alms
collected by mendicants. And ‘Mauryas' referred to here cannot mean a class of
mendicants. The passage is "Mauryair hiranyārthibhih". The word ‘hiranyārthibhih'
is significant. Beggars do not go about asking for gold. It refers to kings. There
are more than half a dozen places in the Mahābhāsya where occurs the
sentence ‘arthinaś ca rājāno hiraņyena bhavanti" [35]
where it refers to a fine or punitive tax collected by kings. The passage might
naturally refer to a kind of religious tax collected by the Mauryas and
probably introduced by them on the model of the practice of Babylonia where the
whole land belonged to God.[36]
There might have been periodical religious processions carrying the image of
God, when collection was made from house to house. It is a custom that obtains
in India even at present. Now Mayūra Vāhana is a synonym of Skanda.
He is pictured as riding a peacock. That the Mauryas derive their name from the
word ‘moriya' which meant peacock and that the peacock was the symbol of the
Mauryan dynasty are now facts admitted by scholars of note. The
Mahāvamśa Tīkā explains thus the origin of the term Mauryan:[37]

"The appellation of Moriyan sovereigns" is derived from the auspicious circumstance under which their
capital, which obtained the name of Moriya, was called into existence.

"While Buddha yet lived, driven by the misfortunes produced by the war of (prince)
Vidhudhabo, certain members of the Sākya line retreating to Himavanto,
discovered a delightful and beautiful location, well watered and situated in
the midst of a forest of lofty bo and other trees. Influenced by the desire of
settling there, they founded a town at a place where several great roads met,
surrounded by durable ramparts, having gates of defence therein, and
embellished with delightful edifices and pleasure gardens. Moreover, that
(city) having a row of buildings covered with tiles, which were arranged in the
pattern of the plumage of a peacock's neck, and as it resounded with the notes
of flocks of ‘Konohos' and ‘Mayūros' (pea-fowls), was so called. From this
circumstance these Sākya lords of this town, and their children and
descendants were renowned throughout Jambu dipo by the title of ‘Moriya'. From
this, the dynasty has been called the Moriyan dynasty."

J. Przyluski says[38]
"Mayūra once admitted into the religious literature, had evolved like
other Indo-Aryan words. The existence of the Prakrit form ‘Mora' explains the
nature of the Maurya dynasty. This word which the Chinese translators render by
"the family of the Peacock" is to be classed with Mātanga amongst the
names of tribes and royal clans related to animal or vegetable". Dr. Radhakumad
Mookerji remarks[39] "The
connection of the Moriyas or Mauryas with the peacock is attested by
interesting monumental evidence. One of the pillars of Asoka shows at its
foundation the figure of a peacock, while the sculptures on the great Sanchi
Stūpa depict the peacock at three places. Both Faucher and Sir John
Marshall agree with Grunwedel that this representation of thepeacock
was due to the fact that the peacock was the dynastic symbol of the Mauryas."

Weightier evidences cannot be cited to prove that Mayura or the
peacock symbolizes the Mauryas. It is needless to say that the usual deviation
based on the assumption that Mura was the name of Chandragupta's mother is
ill-founded. As the Mauryas were responsible for the introduction of this
worship, and as they might have led the processions carrying the image, Skanda
must have come to acquire the appellation of Mayūra Vāhana. It
tallies with the evidence of the Mahābhāsya and corroborates western
evidence of Chandragupta's Alexander-worship. The identity of the real animal
which conveyed Alexander is still preserved in the ritual processions of the
image of Skanda mounted on a prancing charger sculptured with realism. The
practice obtains generally on occasion of religious processions and
particularly when the ritual of a mimic fight between Skanda and the Asura is
staged. The Mahabharata corroborates the evidence of the ritual. "Lohitāśvo
mahābāhur hiranyakavacah prabhuh."[40]

Alexander's mother Olympia made no secret of her conviction that he was the son of god. Golden medal, Albukir treasure
Archaeologic Museum, Salonika, Greece

In Margelan of Ferghana, his red silken banner is shown even
at present.[41] The
Mahabharata states, 'Patākā kārttikeyasya Viśākhasya
ca lohitā'.[42]

It is an undisputed fact that Alexander was regarded as the son of
God. Even before the oracle of Ammon Ra proclaimed his divine parentage, there
were circumstances which tended towards a growing credence in the divinity of
his origin. Wheeler remarks[43]
"the confidence in an ultimately divine origin was an essential part of every
family tree among the noble families of the older Greece. All the great heroes
were the sons of Gods. If Minos was the son of Zeus, Theseus must needs, as
Bacchylides's paean, XVII shows it, provehimself Poseidon's son".
Alexander's mother Olympias who was steeped in the religious mysteries of a
semi-Greek land, in the dark cults and orgiastic practices, spells and
incantations of primitive religion, made no secret of her conviction that he
was the son of god. Even Philip suspected his legitimacy, and the tale went
around that the arch-sorcerer Nectanebo, the last Egyptian Pharaoh had visited
Olympias in the guise of the ram-headed Ammon and that he was Alexander's real
father. Olympias was elated when reports reached her of the oracular
confirmation of her conviction. The miraculous success of his military
expeditions augmented further the growing belief; and Skanda is referred to as
Iśasūnn, the son of God.

Zeus Ammon is often portrayed with the horned head of a ram. And
Alexander, the son of Ammon, came to acquire the image of his father with horns
springing up from his head. The coinage of Lysimachushas preserved for us the
profile of the two-horned god, the Dhulqarnein of the Arabs and their Koran.
Chāga mukha or Chāga vaktra, which means ram-faced, is again one of
the synonyms of Skanda.[44]

Alexander the Great (356-323 BC) was depicted in Greek coinage as ram-headed, (Arabic: Zul-Qarnain 'Lord of Two Horns') indicating that he was regarded as a living deity while yet a man. Called in Arabic al-Sikandar or Iskandar, in pan-Indian context the Sikandar name and legend are equally associated with Indian wargod Skanda.

Since pre-Alexandrine times, god Skanda has been associated with Agni and his vehicle the ram. Detail of temple painting, Kiran, eastern Sri Lanka

Al-Khadir (right) and companion Zul-Qarnain (al-Sikandar) marvel at the sight of a salted fish that comes back to life when touched by the Water of Life. "When Alexander sought he did not find what Khizr found unsought" (Sikandar Nāma LXIX.75).

"Visnu in the form of a boar, the great seer in the form
of a deer and Sanmukha in the form of a ram – are these not worshipped by
pious men?" It was evidently a popularly known fact expressed by the author of
the Panca Tantra fables that Skanda was worshipped in the form of a ram. It
might have been so during his days. But who in India knows now of such a
worship as that? Who would not be surprised by the epithet chāga-mukha
applied to Skanda as we find in the Mahabharata? These are facts that could not
be ignored. These are strange corroborations that stare us in the face.

We pass on from the historical facts of his life to the domain of Mythology and Romance to which his name was transported on the wide-spread
wings of popular fancy.

"Around him the whole dream-world of the East took shape and
substance; of him every old story of a divine world conqueror was told afresh."[45]
More than eighty versions of the Alexander-romance, in twenty-four languages
have been collected, some of them the wildest of fairy tales; they range from
Britain to Malaya; no other story in the world has spread like his. Long before
Islam, the Bysantines knew that he had traversed the Silk Route and founded
Chubhan, the great Han capital of Sianfu; while the Graeco-Egyptian Romance
made him subdue both Rome and Carthage, and compensated him for his failure to
reach the eastern Ocean by taking him through the gold and silver pillars of
his ancestor Heracles to sail the western. In Jewish lore he becomes master of
the Throne of Solomon and the High Priest announces him as ruler of the fourth
World-Kingdom of Daniel's Prophecy; he shuts up Gog and Magog behind the Iron
Gate of Derbend, and bears on his shoulders the hopes of the whole earth; one
thing alone is forbidden to him, to enter the cloud-girdled earthly paradise.
The national legend of Iran, in which the man who in fact brought the first
knowledge of the Avesta to Europe persecutes the fire-worshippers and burns the
sacred book, withers away before the romance of the world-ruler; in Persian
story he conquers India, crosses Thibet, and subdues the Faghfur of China with
all his dependencies; then he turns and goes northwards across Russia till he
comes to the Land of Darkness. But Babylon, as was fitting, took him farthest:
for the Babylon-inspired section of the Romance knows that he passed beyond the
Darkness and reached the Well of Life at the world's end on the shores of the
furthest ocean of them all.

In the hill-state called Nysa, overshadowed by the triple-peaked
Mount Meros, probably the modern Koh-I-Mor,[46]
Alexander came into contact with the tradition that the Greek god Dionysus was
the founder of the city and was the first to conquer India. Arrian tells us
that "he heard that the Arabs venerated only two gods, Uranus and Dionysus; the
former because he is visible and contains in himself the heavenly luminaries,
especially the sun, from which emanates the greatest and most evident benefit
to all things human; and the latter on account of the fame he acquired by his
expedition into India. Therefore he thought himself quite worthy to be
considered by the Arabs as a third god, since he had performed deeds by no
means inferior to those of Dionysus."[47]
Was he not himself the accredited son of Zeus? Arrian refers to a current story
of Alexander reeling through Carmania at the head of a drunken rout, dressed as
Dionysus.[48] Dionysus
too is a ram-headed god, the first to conquer India. And the identification is
slowly effected. But Mr W.W. Tarn[49]
is inclined to suspect the truth of this identification. He says "Thereon,
Alexander was deified at Athens, though the story that he became a particular
god Dionysus, seems unfounded". He concedes the existence of the story. Only he
suspects its authenticity.

The truth of the story of this identification is borne out by the
Indian account of Skanda. Most of the ideas current in Greek mythology
concerning Dionysus are available in the Indian version. What are the salient
features of the conception of Dionysus?

The origins of the cult of Dionysus can be traced to prehistoric
times. Dionysus was originally a nature god of fruitfulness and reproduction of
all trees and vegetation. Thus in Indian tradition, Skanda is equated with
‘Viśākha' or ‘Bhadraśākha' (the God of the auspicious
or Golden Bough) evidently referring to the deity of vegetal reproduction.
These words are remnants reminiscent of the ancient cult of tree-worship,
suggestive of Dionysus, Dendrites. Vidyaranya, the philosopher saint speaks of
the prevalence of tree-worship which persists even to the present day, in
India.

In Europe and Asia, where trees and creepers were worshipped during
spring and harvest festivals from the earliest times, a ritual, a symbolic
wedding of the tree with some creeper was often celebrated.[50]
And poetic imagination everywhere pictured trees and creepers in intimate sexual
relation.

And in South Indian tradition, Skanda, equated with Bhadraśākha (He of the Golden
Bough) is represented as marrying Valli, the creeper. The real origin character
of this God and his spouse is preserved in tradition as well as in places
worship, particularly in Ceylon, where adjoining the temple of Skanda there is
a close preserve of cornfield.

Herodotus[51]
speaks of Dionysus as a late addition to the Hellenic gods. "Whence the gods
severally sprang, whether or no they had existed from all eternity, what forms
they bore – these are questions of which the Greeks knew nothing until the
other day, so to speak. For Homer and Hesiod were the first tocompose
theogonies and give the gods their epithets, to allot them their several
offices and occupations, and describe their forms".

The worship of Dionysus is said to be of Thracian origin. But the
fundamental conceptions underlying the rites and ceremonies of Dionysiac
worship are the common heritage of various nations. Yet there is no reason to
doubt the veracity of Herodotus's statement that the worship was new to Greece.
New forms of ritual and new ideas might naturally have been grafted on to the
old existent ones. And that is always the case with religion even when the new
one appears to radically differ from the old. The residuum of old faiths
remains and through a gradual process of osmosis, diffuses into the new.

The cardinal notions of the cult of Dionysus are evident from The
Bacchae of Euripides (Prof. Gilbert Murray's translation),

"Achelous' roaming daughter,Holy Dirce,
virgin water,Bathed he not of
old in theeThe Babe of God,
the Mystery?When from out
the fire immortalTo himself his
God did take him,To his own flesh
and bespake him".

In The Bacchae, Dionysus is fire-born and attended by the light of
torches. He is Dithyrambos[52]
the twice-born: born from fire and again from water. The water-rite or baptism
is an ancient ritual. The baptism of fire and the baptism of water are meant
for the magical acquisition of strength for the child. And it has survived in
Christian ritual to the present day in one form or another.

"In fire is a great strength, and the child must be put in contact
with this strength to catch its contagion and growstrong. The
water-rite, baptism, has the same intent. Water too is full of sanctity, of
force, of ‘mana'; through water comes the birth into a new life".[53]

Now we could trace this Bacchic idea in unaltered form even in the Upanisads. The Katha Upanisad says,

"He knows this
mead-eateras the living
soul at hand,Lord of what has
been and what is to be,He shrinks not
from him. This verily is that.He who first
from the fire was bornFrom waters, of
old, was bornWho in mystery
entered stands,Who was seen by
creatures".

Whatever be the metaphysical interpretation given, the fact remains
that there is unmistakable parallelism between these passages from the Bacchae
and the Katha Upanisad. The fire-born, water-born mead-eater who
stands in mystery cannot escape our notice.

Later Sanskrit literature, particularly classical Sanskrit dramas, abound in descriptions of
Vasantotsava or Madanotsava. The Vasantotsava was a regular Bacchanalian
festival conforming in all essential details to the authentic western type.
Compare the description in the Ratnāvali of Śrī Harsa.

Skanda is frequently spoken of as the son of fire (Agnibhū - the son of the Ganges (Gangāsuta) and Mystery (Guha).

Dionysus us also described as the son of Semele, the Earth Mother.[54]
"He is not only son of Semele, of Earth, but son of Semele as Keraunia, Earth
the thunder-smitten".[55]
It was appropriate in her case as bride of Zeus, the god of thunder. Euripides
has rendered the conception into immortal verse in his Hyoppolytus.

"O mouth of
Dirce, O god-built wallThat Dirce's
well run under;You know the
Cyprian's fleet foot-fallYe saw the
heavens round her flareWhen she lulled
to her sleep that Mother fairOf Twy-bron
Bacchus and crowned her there.The Bride of the
bladed thunder:For her breath
is on all that hath life,And she floats
in the air,
Bee-like, death-like, a wonder"

Now the word Keraunia regularly sanskritized becomes saravana.
Compare the analogy of Ionia which admittedly becomes yavana. Skanda is
Śaravanabhava, born of Śaravana. But the usual Sanskrit
etymology of Śaravana a "forest of reeds" seems quite
natural, when this original signification was lost through the lapse of time.
He is also referred to as Mahīsuta,[56]
the son of the Earth.

According to Greek mythology, Dionysus, the son of Zeus, was nursed
by the nymphs Hyades. They were originally twelve on number and five of them
were placed among the stars as Hyades and seven of them under the name of
Pleiades, out of gratitude for their services.[57]

And according to the Indian myth, the six stars Krttikās
or Pleiades were the nurses of Skanda, and thus he acquired the name of Kārttikeya.
This particular corroboration is worth noting. The myths are identical. The
same star groups figure both in the capacity of nursing nymphs. It is an
interesting fact.[58]
The constellation of the Pleiades looms large in the imagination of all
primitive peoples. The coincidence of the rising or the setting of the
constellation with the commencement of the rainy season might have made the primitive
man associate these stars with agriculture. This belief was current in both
hemispheres. The aborigines of Australia, the Indians of Paraguey and Brazil,
Peru and Mexico and North America, the Polynesians and Melanesians, the natives
of New Guinea, the Indian Archipelago, and of Africa hold this star-group in
veneration. Greeks and Romans and ancient Indians had noted the heliacal
rising. Naturally enough, stars which were associated with the rains and the
fertility of the crops were regarded as the nurses of the god of vegetation and
fertility.

"Dionysus is a god of many names; he is Bacchos, Baccheus, Iacchos,
Bassareus, Bromios, Euios, Sabzios, Zagreus, Thyoneus, Lenaios, Eleuthereus,
and the list by no means exhausts his titles".[59]
Many of them are descriptive titles. "Certain names seem to cling to certain
places. Sebazios is Thracian and Phryian, Zagreus Cretan, Bromios largely
Theban, Iacchos Athenian."

Zagreus or the Cretan Dionysus is the son of the Goddess Mountain
Mother.[60]
On the clay impression of a signet ring found at the palace of Cnossos, we come
across the figure of the Mountain Mother. On the apex of the mountain, there
she stands with two fierce mountain-ranging lions on either side, with an
extended weapon, "imperious and dominant".[61]
Behind her is her shrine with columns, trident-shaped. The
triśūla-shape is unmistakable. Now turn to India. Skanda is the son
of Pārvatī Umā. I venture to suggest that Pārvatī
Umā is an exact rendering of Mountain Mother. Of course, a curious
etymology of Umā has been given by the Puranas, which we find is followed
by the great poet, Kalidasa.

"Umeti mātrā tapaso
nisiddhāPascād
umākhyām sumukhī jagāma"

– Kumāra sambhava

"Forbidden by her mother from penance, with the words "U" "MĀ" (O don't) the graceful
girl later acquired the name of Umā."

The ingenuity of the etymology is transparent. In fact, the word Umā
seems to be related to the Semitic word ‘Umma' which means mother; and Ambā
and Ambikā are other names of Pārvatī.

The worship of a Mother Goddess was prevalent throughout Asia. It
obtained in Egypt and from there it is said to have passed on to Greece.[62]
Herodotus asserts, "The Egyptians, they went on to affirm, first brought into
use the names of twelve gods, which the Greeks adopted from them; and erected
altars, images and temples to the gods; and also first engraved upon the stone
the figures of animals. In most of these cases they proved to me that what they
said was true." [63] George
Rawlinson remarks "there is also evidence of the Greeks having borrowed much
from Egypt in their early Mythology as well as in later times, after their
religion had long been formed."[64]
In Egypt we find a Goddess "standing on a lion, like ‘Mother Earth' who is
mentioned by Macrobius[65]
(Saturn. I, 26). We find her again in Assyrian monuments.[66]
The very name of the Egyptian Mother Goddess is ‘Maut'.[67]
The comments of the great scholar G. Rawlinson on this point are again worth
quoting. "Besides the evidence of common origin, from the analogies in the
Egyptian, Indian, Greek and other systems we perceive that Mythology had
advanced to a certain point before the early migration took place from central
Asia. And is in after times each introduced local changes, they often borrowed
so largely from their neighbours that a strong resemblance was maintained; and
hence the religions resembled each other, partly from having a common origin,
partly from direct imitation, and partly from adaptation; which continued to a
late period".[68] But whether
the early migration took place from Central Asia or not is a question beyond
the purview of this paper.

We have already referred to Dionysos being portrayed as ram-headed
and Skanda being Chānga-mukha. It is interesting to note, in this
connection, that he is referred to as ‘Naigameya' in the Mahabharata.
Would it not be possible that this word has its origin in misreading and
mis-spelling the word Nysian, Dionysos being taken to mean the Nysian
God. Such a suspicion is strengthened by the large variety of forms in which
the word Naigameya occurs in various works. It occurs as Nejamesa
in the Grhya Sūtras of Āśvalāyana and
Śānkhāyana, as Naigamesa in Suśruta and as Nemeśa
in the Mathurā Inscription.[69]
Prof. Pargiter gives various illustrations of flagrant misreadings of names.[70]Naiśeya or Naiśayeya meaning Nysian would have easily
assumed all these various forms.

The Indian legend concerning the origin of Skanda is vague,
vacillant and divergent. Different sources give different tales. The
Mahabharata has two or three varying versions. The tone of dubious hesitancy is
patent. The first version of the story goes that Vasistha and the other
Rsis were offering a sacrifice. Agni, being invoked, descended from
the sun, entered into the fire and received the oblations. Issuing forth from
the fire, he beheld the lovely spouses of the seven Rsis, bathing
pleasantly in their hermitages. They shone like golden altars, pure as the
crescent moon, like the flames of fire, and all as wondrous as the stars. The
mind of Agni was upset. He became the slave of his passion. Knowing no other
means of quenching his lust, he entered into the domestic fire and beheld them
and touched them with his flames. Thus he dwelt for long enamoured of these
lovely women. But his heart's desire was unfulfilled, and in distress and
despair, he decided to abandon his corporeal form and retired into the forest.
Now Svāhā, the daughter of Daksa has fallen in love with him.
Her amour was unrequited and she now found an opportune moment and a clever
ruse. She assumed the form ofthe wives of the six rsis, one after
another, and enjoyed the bliss of union with Agni. But she was not able to
impersonate Arundhati, the chaste wife of Vasistha. Thus,

"six times was the seed of Agni thrown into the
reservoir on the first of the lunar fortnight. Discharged there and collected,
that seed by its energy generated a son. That which was discharged (Skanna)
being worshipped by the rsis became Skanda."

It is evident that Śiva or Rudra does not come in here, nor do
the Krttikā stars. In the next stage, Agni is equated with Rudra and
the Krttikās are slyly smuggled in.

"Brahmins call Agni Rudra;
therefore, he (Skanda) is the son of Rudra. The seed which was discharged by
Rudra became the white mountain. And the seed of Agni was placed by the
Krttikās on the white mountain. All the devas having seen him
honoured by Rudra, they call him who is the mysterious one, the best of the
virtuous, the son of Rudra. This child was born when Rudra had entered the
fire. Skanda, the greatest of the Devas, was born with the energy of Rudra, of
Agni, of Svāhā and of the six women. Therefore he became the son of
Rudra".

The confusion arising out of the attempt at the fusion of different
concepts is hardly disguised. We perceive the very process of fusion, the
trembling fingers of the fabulist at work, mixing and mingling divergent
legends. Rudra and Agni, Svāhā and Krttikās are all
jostling against each other. The introduction of the Krttikās does
not appear to serve a purpose here. The acquisition of the six faces through
their intrusion is mentioned only later. And there, Śiva has slowly
displaced Agni from his original fatherhood. Agni becomes the agonized bearer
of Śiva's caustic energy.

"The discharged energy of Śiva fell into Agni.
The Lord Agni was not better able to bear all that imperishable stuff. The
brilliant bearer of oblations was sinking under it. Being advised by Brahma, he
deposited it in the Ganges. The Ganges herself incapable of bearing it threw it
ashore on the venerable Himalayan range. There, the son of Agni grew
encompassing the worlds. The Krttikās saw that lustrous foetal form
in the thicket of Sara reeds, and each one cried out "he is mine". The lord
knowing their maternal affection drank the effluent milk of their breast with
six mouths."

We are now going to tread on more controversial ground. Dionysus is
said to be the son of Zeus and Skanda is the son of Siva. Could it be that the
very word Siva itself is an Indianization of Zeus and imported from outside?
The word Zeus has a long history behind it. Philologists are agreed that agreed
that Zeus is the Greek form of the Sanskrit word "dyaus" which means
sky, and we have the form "divas pitr" corresponding to the western
from Zeus-pater or Jupiter. But the word Siva in the sense of a god, we do not
come across in the Vedas. We are familiar with Rudra, the Vedic counterpart of
the Puranic Siva. We meet Siva in some Upanisads, the chronology of which
is questionable. Pānani is familiar with Siva, and Patanjali too.

In the spring of 327 BC, Alexander and his army marched into India invading Punjab. The greatest of Alexander's battles in India was at the river Hydaspes, against king Porus, one of the most powerful Indian rulers. In the summer of 326 BC, Alexander's army crossed the heavily defended river during a violent thunderstorm to meet Porus' forces. The Indians were defeated in a fierce battle, even though they fought with elephants, which the Macedonians had never seen before. Porus was captured and like the other local rulers he had defeated, Alexander allowed him to continue to govern his territory. Above: "Surrender of Porus to the Emperor Alexander," an engraving by Alonzo Chappel, 1865

That is to say, earlier than the 4th Century B.C., the usually
accepted date of Panini, three is no authentic mention of Siva. It is not
proposed here to claim Siva to be a thorough-bred foreigner. The excavations at
Mohenja Daro have brought to light a seal (Plate XII of Sir John Marshall's
work) representing a prototype of Siva Paśupati, and it reveals the hoary
antiquity of such a conception. As so often happens in the history of religion,
new names and new notions were overlaid on the old. But a question might
naturally arise. If the word Siva has come from Greece, how could
Pānini be aware of him in the 4th Century or thereabout?
India had come into contact with the western world, long before the conquest of
Alexander. From the days of Xerxes who invaded the North-West, India had
frequent intercourse with the West. Contingents of Indian troops had served in
the armies of Xerxes and Darius in their expeditions against Greece. Trade and
commerce might have helped the process of the diffusion of religion and
culture. But it is rather a hazardous venture to hang on the frail form of a
verbal resemblance in matters like this. But the parallelism does not stop with the word.

Attributes of Siva with which we are familiar in Indian religious
literature are discernable in the case of his Greek counter-part Zeus. We note
Zeus as Jupiter triophthalmos the triple-eyed god.[71]
Siva as triambaka is worshipped throughout India; and triambaka is always
explained as three-eyed. We become aware, for once, of the fact, that there is
a word amba or ambaka in Sanskrit which means an eye. It is suspicious.

In Egypt we encounter the Solar god variously called Atin, Atys, or
Attin,[72]
who was both male and female (Macrobius-Saturn I, 26). We meet the double-sexed
god again in Europe. Says Rawlinson, "Macrobius (Saturn III.7) speaks of a
bearded Venus in Cyprus and She is called by Aristophanes ‘Aphroditos',
apparently according with the notion of Jupiter being of two sexes, as well as
of many characters and with the Egyptian notion of a self-producing and
self-engendering deity. This union of the two sexes is also found in Hindoo
mythology, and similarly emblematic of the generative of productive
principles."[73] Of course,
the double-sexed Zeus of Hindu Mythology is Siva,
Ardhanārīśvara. It is a striking similarity.

Herodotus speaks of a Jupiter Stratius worshipped by the Carians.[74]"He was also called Jupiter Labrandeus, either from his temple at Labranda
or from the fact that he bore in his right hand a double-headed battle-axe
(‘Labra' in the Lydian language). Such a representation of Jupiter is sometimes
found upon Carian coins. And a similar axe appears frequently as an
architectural ornament in the buildings of the country." [75]
We are naturally reminded of Siva as Khanda paraśu figuring so frequently in Sanskrit literature.

It is an admitted fact that the word ‘Tues' of Tuesday is derived
from the name of the old German God Zio, (Zeus) or Tius.[76]
The Indian names of the days of the week are exactly corresponding to the
western names. These names assuredly, had a common origin. Dion Cassius[77]
expressly states that the seven days were first referred to the seven planets
by the Egyptians. The ‘tues' of Tuesday appears as Cevva in Dravidian
languages. That is as much as to say that the Dravidian word Cevva corresponds
to the western word Zeus. Now in Tamil, the alleged root of the word Cevva may
be spelt either way as ‘Civ' or ‘Cev', and C is pronounced as Ś. If
this process of reasoning is sound, it would follow that, while directly
through Vedic and Sanskrit, various forms of the word ‘dyaus' became
current in India, it reached India again through the Greek form Zeus, after
circuitous migrations in diverse lands, passing through diverse tongues. This
fact explains the absence of the God Siva in the Vedas, and probably South
India hugged to her bosom this new-come god with fervid devotion. Of course,
there were gods and goddesses too before the arrival of Siva. But again, they
paled into insignificance before the impetuous new-comer. The conception of
Siva as astamurti is a bold attempt at an all-embracing symposium of diverse
allied cults of the worship of Zeus, as the sun, the moon, etc. Even the
practice of the devotees of Siva daubing themselves with white ashes (bhasman)
is analogous to the orphic rite of the worshippers of Zeus besmearing their
bodies with dust or ashes or gypsum which the ancients called ‘titanos'.
Archbishop Eustathius commenting on the word Titan says, "we apply the word
titanos in general to dust, in particular to what is called asbestos, which is
the white fluffy substance in burnt stones".[78]

It is claimed by some that Skanda is purely a South Indian God and
there are no Skanda temples in the north. It might be so or not now. But even
during the days of Kalidasa, we come across great Skanda Shrines of note in the
north. Cf. ‘Tatra skandum niyatavasatim' – Meghadūta.
Sānkarācārya invokes him as the God of the Indus region.

Before the introduction of the Skanda or Kārttikeya cult from
the north, under the name of Subrahmanya, South India was paying for her
divine homage to Muruka, amongst other local primitive deities. Amongst
Dravidians it was a very ancient worship. But even here, palpable affinities
could be traced to similar religious rites elsewhere. Muruka, like Skanda, is
the God of War. He was also the God of Hunting. We are told of a Babylonian and
Cushite God of Hunting and of War under a name variously spelt as Murik,[79]
Mirukh[80]
and Mirikh. Murik is really the original Cushite and it is still applied by the
Arabs to the planet Mars which has always represented the God of War: and does
even today represent Skanda in India. The word occurs still in this vernacular
form in Ethiopian inscriptions. The worship of the same god with the same
functions under the same name by apparently different races is a problem for
ethnologists to tackle. But the fact remains. Either the Cushites and
Dravidians might both belong to the same race, or one might have adopted the
practice from the other. The former is the more probable hypothesis.

Theocrasia, or the fusing of one god with another has played a
conspicuous part in the history of religion from prehistoric times. In the
oldest Egyptian religion, Horus, the son of God Osiris (Serapis) was regarded
as the intercessor with the Father for sinners. H.G. Wells says,

"many of
the hymns to Horus are singularly like Christian hymns in their spirit and
phraseology. That beautiful hymn "Sun of my soul, thou Saviour dear", was once
sung in Egypt to Horus. In this worship of Serapis which spread very widely
throughout the civilized world in the third and second centuries B.C., we see
the most remarkable anticipations and usages and forms of expression that were
destined to dominate the European world throughout the Christian era. The
essential idea, the living spirit of Christianity was, as we shall presently
show , a new thing in the history of the mind and will of man; but the garments
of ritual and symbol and formula that Christianity has worn, and still in many
countries wears to this day, were certainly woven in the cult and temples of
Jupiter-Serapis and Isis".[81]

The cult of Skanda was super-imposed on the Muruka cult. But the
ancient form of worship persisted. With slight modifications, it exists to the present day.

When Dionysos first came to Greece – from where exactly we do not
know whether from Thrace or elsewhere – he came with a vast train of
attendants; his revel rout of Satyrs and Centaurs and Maenads.[82]
"The Centaurs, it used to be said, are Vedic Gandharvas, cloud-demons. Mythology
now-a-days has fallen from the clouds, and with it the Centaurs." Homer alludes
to them as "wild men, mountain haunting".[83]
On the metopes of the Parthenon, they appear as horses with the head and trunk
of a man. "By the middle of the 5th Century B.C., in knightly
horse-loving Athens, the horse-form had got the upper hand. In Archaic
representations, the reverse is the case. The centaurs are in art what they are
in reality, men, with men's legs and feet, but they are shaggy mountain-men with
some of the qualities and habits of beasts, so to indicate this in a
horse-loving country, they have the hind quarters of a horse tacked on to their
human bodies." [84]
The Satyrs were essentially akin to the Centaurs.[85]
But when the Centaurs evolved in mythology from wild men to become more and
more horse-like, the Satyrs retained their characteristics of wild men with
diverse beastly adjuncts. The Maenads are the women-attendants of Dionysos, his
nursing nymphs, in mythology. Maenad means ‘mad woman'.[86]
In actual ceremonial, they were women worshippers[87]
possessed, maddened or inspired by his spirit. They had various titles, "Maenad,
Thyiad, Phoibad, Lyssad", meaning "Mad one, Rushing one, Inspired one,
Raging one".[88] These
Satyrs and Centaurs and Maenads correspond to the Sattvas (bhūtas) and
Kinnaras and Mātrganas of Indian Mythology. The
Bhūtaganas retain, in India too, the same mischievous and frolicsome
Puck-like traits of their Greek counter-parts. The Kinnaras appear with
palpable corporal inversion. Their trunks are human, but the heads are
horse-like, and they are frequently referred to as aśva mukhas
(‘having horse-face'). The Mātrganas figure prominently in the
Mahabharata and the Puranas. The women who were seized with divine frenzy when
possessed by the God have left traces of their vanishing existence in ancient
Tamil poetry, though they have faded out of the social life of modern times in India.

These Maenads or nursing nymphs were represented, as we know, by "frenzied
sanctified women"[89]
who worshipped Dionysus as a baby in his cradle. In this particular form,
Dionysus came to be called ‘Dionysus Liknites' – Liknon meaning a
cradle. The Orphic ceremonial of the Liknophoria or the carrying of the Liknon
was widely practiced in Greece. Votive offerings of various sorts, originally
the first fruits of the earth and often the best of things dear to man were
carried in the Liknon to the shrine of Dionysus.

The kāvadi in South India is almost the representation of
an Indian cradle, carried topsy-turvy by the devotee on his shoulder with
offerings hung from the horizontal pole. The word kāvadi
means, in Tamil "a decorated pole of wood with an arch over it carried on
shoulders with offerings, mostly for Muruka's temple."[90]
In a vase-painting from a Krater in the Hermitage Museum at St. Petersburg, we
get an exact representation of the modern Indian kāvadi – the
outline of an arch covered with fillets, curving over the ends of a horizontal
pole with foliar decorations, placed under the feet of Dionysus. Dr. J.E.
Harrison, the talented of the author Prolegomena' and ‘Themis', regards this
representation as the Omphalos of Gaia, the earth Goddess, the mother of
Dionysus.[91] But, the
Earth Goddess does not appear in the picture, and the filleted arch is under
Dionysus's feet. Whatever that be, its resemblance to the kāvadi is
striking and noteworthy.[92]

How was Dionysus worshipped in Ancient Greece? Exact details of
mystic rites cannot possibly be had. But we get interesting descriptions. "His
worshippers, women especially, held nightly revels in his honour by torch-light
on the mountain tops. Dancing in ecstasy to the sounds of cymbals and drums,
they tore in pieces a sacrificial animal, whose blood they drank with wine."[93]

In Athens, the worship of Dionysus was later reformed by Epimenides
and was purged of certain objectionable elements. Dr. J.E. Harrison quotes a
dialogue between Pentheus and Dionysus.[94]

P. How is this worship held, by night or day?D. Most oft by
night, ‘tis a majestic thingThe darkness.Ha! With women worshipping.‘Tis craft and rottenness".

Herodotus speaks of the maddening influence of Dionysus. The band of
raving revellers seized by the god go dancing in divine frenzy.[95]
The scenes were similar in India. The veteran scholar Mr. P.T. Srinivasa Iyengar says,

"The god of the hilly region was the Red God (Seyon) also called
Murugan, who was the patron of prenuptial love. He was offered by his
worshippers balls of rice mixed with the red blood of goats killed in his
behalf. He was a hunter and carried the Vel or Spear…This god created a
love-frenzy in girls."[96]

He quotes again from the Pattinapālai, 11. 134-158, and translates:

"In the market streets there were ceaseless festivals to Murugan, in
which women, obsessed by him, danced, and the flute, and the Yāl
[lute] were sounded and the drums beaten."[97]

We behold today with our own eyes, around us here, pious devotees of
Skanda dancing in ecstasy to the rhythmic beat of resounding drums. We cannot
afford to ignore the unchanging persistence of this very ancient cult. Men may
come and men may go, but it seems, the cult goes on for ever.

I have attempted to show that the very name Skanda is a foreign
importation, that many prominent features of the Skanda cult are immigrants.
Different strata of beliefs could be distinguished in the conglomerate mass of
myths and legends woven around Skanda. Various races and ages have left the
impression of their diverse contributions. Egyptian, Babylonian, Cushite,
Dravidian and Greek and Indo-Aryan conceptions of a particular form of divinity
have all coalesced into a complex faith. Each has impressed its indelible seal
in its present form. Since the advent of Alexander, old faiths took a new turn,
assumed a new cloak. That new trend is discernable. I have but advanced here a
few evidences which go to prove my contention.

But there could be a serious objection. If the word Skanda
has been introduced into India after Alexander's conquest, Indian literature
before the days of Alexander could not possibly refer to him. Are there not
references in the pre-Alexadrine literature of India? There is no mention of
Skanda in the Vedas. But it occurs once in the Upanisadic literature. In
the Chāndogya Upanisad, a seer of the name Skanda Sanatkumāra
is mentioned. It must, first, be noted that it is not a god Skanda yet, that is
referred to. Secondly, the chronology of the Upanisads and of Vedic
literature in general first stated by the Max Muller and accepted by the
majority of the scholars is open to grave doubts. Thirdly, the passage where it
occurs has been alleged to be an interpolation by competent authorities.[98]

The problem of Vedic Chronology is one of the most intricate
problems of Sanskrit literature. Chronology is, in general, the weak point of
the Indian Literary history. Whitney in the introduction to his Sanskrit grammar
said "all dates given in Indian literary history are pins set up to be
bowled down again." Those words ring true even today.

Max Muller started from the few known facts of Indian history – the
Invasion of Alexander, and the rise of Buddhism in his chronological theory.
His arguments were as follows:

Buddhism is nothing but a reaction against Brahminism and it presupposes the existence of the entire Veda
Samhitas, Brāhmanas, Āranyakas and Upanisads.
Therefore, it must have arisen before 500 B.C.

Vedānga and Sūtra literature probably arose simultaneously with the origin and early spread of
Buddhism. These works may be placed in the period from 600 to 200 B.C. But the
Sūtra works presuppose the Brāhmanas. For these he set apart
200 years. Thus the Brāhmanas came to be dated from 800-600 B.C.

The Brāhmanas in their turn, presuppose the Samhitas. Let 200 years be allotted for the
arrangement of the Samhitas. Thus the Samhitas were arranged from
1000-800 B.C.

But arrangements could not take place before composition. Another 200 years for composition. This Veda were
composed during the period from 1200-1000 B.C.

The arguments, indeed, are simple. But from the starting point of the Sūtra period fixed during 600-200 B.C.
through the generous and uniform intervals of 200 years, his hypothesis
flounders on. And Max Muller himself had no absolute faith in his theory. He
says, in his Gifford lectures on Physical Religion, "Whether the Vedic hymns
were composed 1000 or 1500 or 2000 or 3000 years B.C., no power on earth will
ever determine." But those who followed him would not leave his theory
forlorn. When he vacillated, his followers took it up in right earnest and said
that he could not go back, they would support him. That is in short, the story of Vedic Chronology.

The premise that Buddhism presupposes the entire Veda from Samhitas to Upanisads can hardly
be held. In fact the earliest Upanisads like the Brhadāranyaka and the Chāndogya show, let alone the later
ones, traces of Buddhistic influence. Dr R. E. Hume, the learned translator of the thirteen principal Upanisads says:

"Yet, evidence of Buddhistic influence is not wanting in them. In
Brhadāranyaka 3-2-13 it is stated that after death the different
parts of a person return to the different parts of nature from whence they
came, that even his soul (ātman) goes into space and that only his Karma,
or effect of work remains over. This is out and out of the Buddhist doctrine.
Connections in the point of dialect may also be shown. Sarvāvat is a word
which as yet has not been discovered in the whole range of Sanskrit literature,
except in Śatapatha Brāhmana and in Northern Buddhist writings.
Its Pali equivalent is sabbava. In Brh 4-3-2-6 ‘r' is changed to ‘l',
i.e. palyayate from pary-ayate -- a change which is regularly made in the Pali
dialect in which the books of Southern Buddhism are written…Somewhat surer
evidence, however, is the use of the second person plural ending ‘tha' for
‘ta'. Muller pointed out in connection with the word acaratha
(Mundaka 1-2-1) that this irregularity looks suspiciously
Buddhistic. There are, however, four other similar instances."[99]

In reference to the Chāndogya
Upanisad, Prof. Keith says "By a division, which seems to have no
precedent in Brahmanical texts, and which has certainly no merit, logical or
psychological, the individual is divided into five aggregates or groups
(khandha), the Sanskrit equivalent of which means ‘body' in the phrase Dharma
skandha in the Chāndogya Upanisad."[100]"Trayo dharmaskandhāh" (Chāndogya 2.23). Beck compares it with
the Dīgha Nikāya passage, where the three imperfect conceptions of
self as body, as mind and as ideas are referred to.

The Upanisads, it must be noted, mark a break from the tradition of Vedic sacerdotalism. It is not a
normal and regular development of the speculation of the Samhitas, what
little there is. New thoughts and new theories radically opposed to already
existing forms, strike us at every turn. Ritual acts are condemned. Priests are
ridiculed.[101] The new
and sublime doctrine of the soul and again the doctrine of transmigration
appear here, for the first time. The Ksatriya is elevated, often, above
the Brahmin. It is a revolt. It is as much a revolt as Buddhism. Buddhism was
the expression of the revolt of a master mind against the darker forces of the
world, against the inequalities of life, against the thraldom of a rigid social
hierarchy, against dirt and sin and slavery. Whenever in the history of human
thought, we find an abrupt break, a swift swerve from the regular course of
normal evolution, the impact of a master mind will be evident somewhere. That
came from the Buddha. But it is possible that the Buddha himself represented
the normal reaction of a different race against the incursion of new Aryan
tendencies. And Upanisadic literature reflects the tendencies of that new
spirit. The hypothesis usually held, that Buddhism presupposes the
Upanisads seems ill-founded. The converse might be nearer the truth.

There are scholars like Hopkins[102]
and Jackson who place the bulk of the Rg Veda hymns between 800 and 600 B.C. on
the evidence of the very close affinity of the contents and language of the Rg
Veda and the Avesta.[103]

But, whatever be the chronology of
the Upanisads, it is admitted on all hands that the two Upanisads
Brhadāranyaka and Chāndogya are of a composite character.
Different books have been strung together – ill-strung though – to give us the
present versions. And naturally enough, interpolations easily creep in.

If certain notions of the deification of a great foreign prince have been incorporated into legends
concerning an Indian God it need not perturb us. The Bhagavad Gītā assures us –

The fountain-head of all religions is the pure and devout heart of man, thrilled by the awe and mystery of the
universe. The stream might course through diverse regions, carrying with it the
various tributes of minor streams. But it cleanses and refreshes and
strengthens all that seek it, and moves onwards to its final goal, the vast and
mysterious ocean.

The culture and civilisation of India have always been assimilative. India, at heart knows no distinction of
East and west. Well and truly has the noble Marquess of Zetland said:

"The legacy of India, how rich a heritage, drawing contributions, as it does, from diverse races and from many
epochs both preceding and following the great Aryan incursion from the lands
lying beyond the snow-capped ranges of Hindu Kush".

[101] Note for instance the Chandoyga passage of bitter sarcasm hurled against priests – I. 12 4/5. It describes a procession of dogs marching on like
a procession of priests, each holding the tail of the other in front and saying, "Om! Let us eat. Om, let us drink etc."

[103]The Origins and Development of Religion in Vedic Literature by Dr. P.S. Deshmukh, p. 196.

The original article from the Proceedings of the All-India Oriental Conference Vol. IX (Trivandrum: Government Press, 1937, pp. 955-997) has been digitized thanks to Susan Holmes of the Pothos Forum devoted to the study of Alexander the Great.